Friday, December 17, 2010

Continuing the Food Theme

Food during the holidays is a big thing for my family. A really BIG thing. We always have a billion different dishes for our holiday dinners and I always thought that that was pretty much normal, until I met my dear husband, Ben. His family does not really emphasize food during Christmas and Thanksgiving, which is something I will need to get used to. I mean, we are talking two different ends of the spectrum on the food menu thing. My family would use an excel spreadsheet to coordinate their holiday dishes, while Ben’s family sometimes didn’t even cook anything special on Christmas Eve or Day when he was growing up.

I informed Ben that Christmas without the dinner is not really Christmas. In fact, it is pretty much just a birthday, well, without cake. Like I said, pretty different. Of course, this piece of information is something Ben forgot to tell me before we got married. Not that our eternal marriage would have hinged on something like that, I’m just saying, it would have been nice to take into consideration. He has also failed to mention this detail during the last couple Christmases he has spent with my family. He actually mentioned very little about his family’s Christmas celebration besides the fact that they read Luke 2 on Christmas Eve. It wasn’t until our sister-in-law called a few days ago to tell me about their Christmas traditions (thank goodness she realized that I might need some prepping) that I found out they did things differently. I’ve been trying to prepare myself mentally for the change. Tonight we had our ward Christmas party and I made sure to eat plenty of turkey, ham, green bean casserole, and ham. I’m not sure if it will hold me over until next holiday season, but here’s to hoping. If not, we will just have to have Christmas dinner on Ben’s birthday.

In all seriousness, this will be my first Christmas away from my family and I’m a little sad, but I’m also excited to see Ben’s family and experience Christmas with them in Minnesota.

2 comments:

You really brought out the feel of our dinners, we really do have quite a spread of everyone's favorites. We will miss seeing you at the holiday to and our thoughts will be with you and Ben of course. I wanted to let you know that since you are still newlyweds, it's a perfect time to "melt and merge" both of your family traditions so maybe you can contribute one of the family dishes you love into what I'm sure will be a wonderful Christmas day!Grandma Mary Ellen

Natasha, I didn't know you are a blogger!?! Yay! Good luck celebrating in Minnesota this year, at least you are more than likely going to get snow... a white christmas would be awesome, no? Blending family traditions for holidays is a never ending process of give, take and let's-bag-it-all-and-try-something-new. Have an open mind and heart about it and you will have a great time, I'm sure!

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In a Nutshell

Ben and I were married on July 12, 2008. In 2009 we both graduated from the University of Chicago. A few months later we moved to Arizona, and Ben joined the Army. Now it is 2010 and we just moved to Fort Hood, TX. Life is guaranteed to be an adventure!